Forecasters predict up to 6cm of snow in the Midlands and East Anglia by Friday

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The colder of Britain's two contending weather fronts has established a grip on the eastern half of the country, with temperatures falling to lows below -10C overnight and fresh snow likely before the weekend.

Severe weather alerts for ice are in force along the entire North Sea coast and stretching inland as far as the Pennines, Birmingham, Oxford and Hampshire, which mark the border with the warmer west.

A counter-push from Atlantic fronts, rather than further icy easterlies, will bring snow when bands of rain move in from the west, probably late on Thursday and into Friday, and freeze on meeting the cold conditions. Forecasters are predicting three- to 6cm of snow in the Midlands and East Anglia on Friday, with lighter falls further north and south.

The tenacious grip of icy ground temperatures has not altered longer range predictions of milder and unsettled weather gaining ground from next week and to the end of February. The Met Office warned that high winds rather than low temperatures were likely to be a hazard going into March – the month traditionally said to "come in like a roaring lion".

Victoria Kettley, a forecaster for MeteoGroup, said: "Scotland and Northern Ireland will see a front move in during today which could bring some snow in western Scotland – possibly a couple of centimetres on higher ground. It will push south-east overnight and edge into Northumberland and Cumbria by tomorrow morning. There could be rain, sleet and snow on high ground as the leading edge of the front pushes through, as well as the risk of freezing rain.

"Some weather models are showing significant snow for the Midlands of up to 6cm on Friday, but it is uncertain if the precipitation the front is bringing will fall as rain, sleet, or snow."

Dry, bright but cold weather is expected to dominate again on Wednesday in England and Wales, with cloudier conditions in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Temperatures will struggle to top 3C, according to forecasters, before plummeting again on Wednesday at dusk.

The Met Office deployed its concept of "100% probability" to suggest the certainty of "severe cold weather and icy conditions until 10am on Friday in parts of England. This weather could increase the health risks to vulnerable patients." Travellers have been reminded that lower ground than air temperatures pose a severe danger of black ice, especially after rainfall.

Tributes have been paid to a well-known cheesemaker and a schoolboy who died in the recent icy spell, although the weather has not been confirmed as the cause. Mandy Reed, 47, whose Swaledale cheese has won many awards, was found dead in a neighbour's garden near Richmond, North Yorkshire, after returning late from a family celebration. In Castleford, West Yorkshire, 10-year-old Joshua Houlgate collapsed and died while playing in the snow.

Gary Verity, chair of Welcome to Yorkshire, the regional tourist board, said: "[Mandy] was a familiar sight at Leyburn market on a Friday, and was known as 'the cheese lady'. She will be sadly missed." Julie Murray, headteacher at Smawthorne Henry Moore primary school, Castleford, said that Joshua, who had suffered from epilepsy when younger, "held a very special place in our hearts. He was a much-loved pupil who was well liked by his friends and all the staff at school."

In Hull, a man believed to be in his 50s was found dead in a park after overnight temperatures fell to -7C. But snow saved a cyclist from serious injury when he was caught by a rope strung across an offroad track at Hamsterley in County Durham. Police are investigating the incident, which left Lukasz Sikorski, 29, with bruises and a rope-burn.

Prime minister insists health and social care bill will be forced on to statute book despite growing opposition

David Cameron is to rally behind his health secretary Andrew Lansley and insist that the coalition will force its health and social care bill on to the statute book despite growing opposition within the NHS and the Conservative party.

As the Lords return to the bill on Wednesday, the reforms are likely to dominate prime minister's question time at lunchtime.

Cameron is expected to quash speculation that Lansley's future in the cabinet is in doubt, after an unnamed No 10 insider was quoted as saying he should be "taken out and shot". The briefing was described as unauthorised, but No 10 acknowledged it may have taken its eye off the ball, allowing opposition to the bill to re-emerge.

Cameron and Lansley have met within the last 48 hours to discuss tactics. There is widespread frustration inside Downing Street at the way in which the professions were brought on side, but then slipped from the coalition's grasp over the past two months.

Cameron is to undertake a series of NHS events next week, and is said to be confident that opposition to the bill in the Lords, at report stage, will be overcome. He is determined to set up the battle as one between a bureaucrat-run NHS and a doctor-run NHS.

Some of the most controversial sections in the bill on competition are unlikely to be completed until late March, by which time the local election campaign will be under way.

The shadow cabinet has agreed to include dropping the bill and NHS closures in its local election campaign themes.

Grassroots pressure for the Liberal Democrats in government to take a tougher line may surface at the party's spring conference starting on 9 March.

Andrew Burnham, the shadow health secretary, accused ministers of having "abjectly failed to build a political and professional consensus behind the bill", which he believed could still be stopped.

"All around the consensus is building that it's better for the NHS to work back through the existing structures than to carry forward with this dangerous, wholesale reorganisation," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"I will work with the government to introduce GP-led commissioning, I've no objection to that at all, but as people from all quarters are now saying, this bill will damage the NHS at this particular time. It's the wrong thing for the NHS, the wrong reforms at the wrong time and they should drop the bill."

Burnham expressed concern about the potential effect of full competition on the health service. He said Labour had introduced an element of private provision to drive down waiting times, but this had been done in the context of a "planned, collaborative system", with just 2% of operations carried out in the private sector by the end of its term in office.

"We had an NHS that was a collaborative NHS providing good standards of care and the question I keep coming back to is why on earth are the government turning it upside down. They inherited a successful, self-confident NHS and in just 18 months have turned it into an organisation that is demoralised, destabilised and fearful of the future."

Lord Owen, the former SDP leader, took the unusual step of suggesting NHS staff had been misled into believing Cameron's election guarantees on the NHS because his late son Ivan had been disabled.

He wrote on his blog: "David Cameron should remember the words he spoke about the NHS during the election. Most of those who work in the health service were aware of his own late son's illness and felt that when he spoke about the NHS not having any more top-down reorganisations, he carried the conviction of someone who had real experience of what the NHS represented in British life."

He said Cameron was the only person who could abandon the bill, saying if he did so "the NHS would heave a collective sigh of relief and next day start to implement, under existing legislation, those aspects on which there is widespread agreement".

Cameron's staff were privately angered by Owen's remarks, but refused to comment.

Pressure also mounted on the Lib Dems, with Nick Clegg accused by Labour of "abject betrayal" over his support for Lansley's bill.

The Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, claimed in the Commons the reforms would pave the way for NHS hospitals to earn up to half of their income from private work, putting NHS patients "at the back of the queue".

Clegg defended the changes, saying the alternative to reform would be to "condemn a number of hospitals into outright financial crisis".

At least nine Lib Dem MPs have signed an early day motion demanding that Lansley be forced to publish an independent risk report carried out into the reforms, which critics claim warned that the planned changes to allow GPs to commission health services on behalf of patients would lead to a surge in costs.

Senior Lib Dems expect the Lords to inflict defeats on the coalition over the bill, but even opponents are not expecting a rebellion as strong as that against the welfare reform bill last month.

Speaking to the House magazine, Clegg appeared to recognise dissent in his own ranks, saying: "Let's be blunt: I'm asking, day in, day out, Liberal Democrat peers to vote on things that they wouldn't do in a month of Sundays if it was a Liberal Democrat government."

Clegg also praised Lady Williams, one of the bill's strongest critics in the Lords, claiming that as a result of her intervention the bill was "a whole lot better than it would have been otherwise".

The reforms have come under fire from an unprecedented coalition of critics, including the Royal College of GPs, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives, and a joint editorial by three influential health journals: the British Medical Journal, the Nursing Times and the Health Service Journal.

More than 90% of those who voted in a British Medical Journal poll believed the planned health reforms should be scrapped. Of 2,947 votes cast on bmj.com over the last week, 2,706 said the reforms should be dropped while 241 said they should stay.

The former Tory cabinet minister Lord Tebbit is among those with reservations about parts of the legislative plans.

But he said the NHS inherited by the coalition was in need of "urgent treatment" and many of the health unions and associations had self interests in their opposition to the bill.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Tebbit rallied to Lansley's defence, arguing his reforms deserved "a fair wind".

He concluded: "To do as Lord Owen would have us do, and wreck the bill and run away from the consequences, would be an irresponsible surrender to self interest masquerading as the public interest. It will be a year or two before we can reach a verdict on every bit of the Lansley bill, but his reforms surely deserve a fair wind."

Opposition activists say tanks are pushing deeper into residential areas before feared final ground assault

Scores of people have been killed in the fifth straight day of shelling in the beseiged Syrian city of Homs, according to opponents of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The continuing bombardments of the districts of Bayadah, Baba Amr, al-Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun caused many deaths, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Omar Shaker, an activist in Baba Amr, said the district was under "very intense shelling" by tanks, mortars, artilleries and heavy machine guns. He said he had counted five bodies.

Other reports suggest 47 civilians died early on Wednesday in the government's continuing attempts to subdue opposition areas. At least 150 people have died in the last two days, activists and oppostion sources have told Reuters.

One activist, Muhammad Hassan, said by satellite phone: "Electricity returned briefly and we were able to contact various neighbourhoods because activists there managed to recharge their phones. We counted 47 killed since midnight." Hassan said the bombardment had intensified in Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods that have risen up against Assad.

"Mortar and rocket fires have subsided but heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns are still strong … Tanks are in main thoroughfares in the city and appear poised to push deep into residential areas," Hassan said.

The official state news agency said "armed terrorist groups" had attacked police roadblocks in Homs and fired mortar bombs at the city, with three falling on the Homs oil refinery. It gave no details of any damage.

Inhabitants of the besieged city told the Guardian they were under "genocidal attack" from a regime apparently deaf to international opinion and determined to "bomb, starve and shoot" them into submission.

The latest assault followed a huge bombardment on Tuesday night, when activists reported rockets raining down every few minutes, and helicopters and fighter planes circling overhead. They said Syrian army tanks had encircled opposition-held suburbs in preparation for what they feared was a final, deadly ground assault.

"The regime didn't expect us to continue our struggle against them," activist Karam Abu Rabea said. "They didn't think we would persist. So now it is using its last card: it is the genocide card."

Rabea said the regime was deliberately attempting to starve families in rebel-controlled districts. Army snipers had been positioned on the main roads, he added, and were able to shoot anyone who ventured out on the smaller, intersecting side roads. No one could escape, he said. "They are targeting the vital installations of the city: bakeries, the hospital, mosques … The Assad regime is trying to destroy Homs completely."

His comments came as the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, held talks in Damascus with Assad after Russia and China vetoed a UN security council resolution on Saturday that had been designed to stop the bloodshed.

The veto prompted global condemnation, with the US closing its embassy on Damascus on Monday and Britain recalling its ambassador for consultations.

On Tuesday, the diplomatic exodus from Damascus continued, with France and Italy withdrawing their ambassadors. Six Gulf states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – also pulled their envoys out and expelled Syrian ambassadors from their own countries.

Witnesses inside the city said there were ominous signs of preparations for a final assault. Eleven months after Syria's uprising began, with Homs as its epicentre, 13 Russian-made T-72 tanks had penetrated as far as Tripoli Street, south-east of Baba Amr, witnesses said.Up to 12 tanks surrounded al-Khaldiyeh. The Syrian army had entered via areas loyal to the regime, the witnesses added.

Another activist, Sufian, said security forces had captured a hospital in al-Halemei. The injured people were taken away to prison. The last field hospital in Baba Amr was bombed on Monday, he said. "We lost 10 people when we tried to evacuate it." "We are using kitchen knives for surgery. All the field hospitals have been targeted. We are relying on domestic medicine cabinets to treat the injured. We don't have any blood for donations, or oxygen. We are calling on help from the whole world. We need urgent help opening the blockade of Homs."

Activists said opposition fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were no match for their well-armed government adversaries, equipped with tanks, fighter planes and Russian heavy weapons. "The soldiers who defected from the army only have Kalashnikovs. How can you face a battalion with a Kalashnikov?" Sufian asked. Amid the horror, activists expressed optimism. They said that despite the continuing massacre, in which Homs has become Syria's bloody counterpart to Misrata in Libya, they still expected Assad's regime to crumble. Rabea said that after this weekend's failure to find a diplomatic settlement, the only way the world could stop the slaughter in Syria was to arm the FSA.

"The international community needs to give the FSA money," Rabea said. "And weapons. We need the Red Cross here, we need a no-fly zone, and we need safe havens so that people can flee.

"We blame Russia and China mainly for all the killing happening in the city now. Our crime is that we wanted freedom."

Three BJP ministers in southern state resign after TV footage shows them apparently watching pornographic clip on mobile

Three government ministers in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have resigned after they were accused of watching a pornographic video during an assembly session.

The rightwing Bharatiya Janata party, which rules Karnataka, ordered the three ministers to resign after local television channels aired footage on Tuesday of the men watching the allegedly pornographic video clip while state assembly proceedings were going on.

The ministers denied watching pornography, but said they were resigning to save their party from embarrassment.

The governor of Karnataka accepted the resignations.

Television footage showed Laxman Savadi, minister for co-operation, watching the video clip on his mobile phone and then passing the device to CC Patil, minister for women and child development.

The phone belonged to the minister for ports, Krishna Palemar, who also resigned.

Soon after television stations aired the footage, outraged residents of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, held protests outside the homes of the three ministers, demanding their resignation.

Savadi said he was watching a video clip of a rave party to prepare for a discussion in the assembly.

• Hester concerned about public attention on RBS
• He describes bank as 'biggest time bomb in history'
• 'There have been some deeply depressing moments'

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, considered resigning during the furore over his near £1m bonus but decided it would be too "indulgent" to do so.

Speaking for the first time since he waived his bonus a week ago, the boss of the bailed-out bank admitted he was concerned about the impact the public attention was having on the bank, which he described as "the biggest time bomb in history".

He also insisted that he did not set his own pay and could not become embroiled in the politics over pay differentials, saying he needed to be a "commercial animal" committed to defusing the timebomb that he inherited when he was appointed to replace Fred Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood last week.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4 Today programme he also challenged the interviewer James Naughtie about his own pay and whether it would withstand comparisons with nurses or doctors.

"I'm certainly not a robot and there have been some deeply depressing moments. In the end I came to the conclusion it would be indulgent for me to resign and what I ought to do was draw on the reserves of strength I have ," Hester said when asked if he had considered resigning from the role, which has a £1.2m salary before bonuses.

He stressed he was not a banker during the banking crisis and admitted that the banking industry had become "over confident" and that there been "over rewards" in the good times before the near collapse of the bank. As chairman Sir Philip Hampton had said last week, Hester also admitted he had underestimated the scale of the "furore" that his bonus award of 3.6m of shares would cause.

But he insisted that he could not tackle the issue of high pay and differentials through his own pay.

" Of course these issues of what different people get paid are as old as the hills ... I don't have the luxury of that debate. I'm not a politican. What I want to be is a commercial animal," Hester added.

"I think we make a mistake as a society if we forget how wealth is generated and how successful people are motivated and in the case of RBS it's more complicated. .. we're defusing, delicately, a big timebomb," Hester said.

He insisted that he believed in paying taxes but said: "I don't think cutting down success is the way to go about fairness".

He said he decided not to take the bonus because "I took the judgement that it was going to be damaging for RBS to stay in the intensity of that spotlight that we had got into" and stressed he wanted to "accomplish" the task he had been set – to turn around RBS.

Shortly after he was appointed in October 2008, the bank reported the biggest loss in UK corporate history of £24bn. In an email to staff on Tuesday, he admitted the bank had incurred £38bn of costs trying to clean up the mess but also generated £33bn of profits, before impairment charges.

He was speaking publicly after sending an email to staff, in which he called on workers at the bailed-out bank to be "strong", "purposeful", and "calm", in the wake of the publicity surrounding his decision on the bonus and the stripping of the knighthood from his predecessor, Fred Goodwin.

On Tuesday night the chancellor George Osborne also tried to defuse the row over politics and business that has raged since Hester waived his bonus — followed by the bosses of Network Rail. Osborne said that he believed in the free market to fight against rewards for failure in the financial system. He added: "There are those who are trying to create an anti-business culture in Britain – and we have to stop them. At stake are not pay packages for a few but jobs and prosperity for the many."

Former vice-president Mohammed Waheed Hassan calls for national unity government as police keep watch on predecessor

The new president of the Maldives has called for the formation of a national unity government as police and soldiers keep watch over his predecessor at an undisclosed location.

Mohammed Waheed Hassan, the former vice-president, was sworn in on Tuesday when Mohamed Nasheed resigned after police joined widening street protests against his government.

Addressing a news conference on Wednesday, Hassan denied claims he was behind a plot to oust Nasheed. He said he had not prepared to take over the country and he called for the creation of a unity coalition.

"Together, I am confident, we'll be able to build a stable and democratic country," he said, adding that his government intended to respect the rule of law.

Hassan, who had promised to protect Nasheed from retribution, said his predecessor was not under any restriction and was free to leave the country. However, he said he would not interfere with any police or court action against Nasheed.

Police are investigating the discovery of at least 100 bottles of alcohol inside a truck removing rubbish from the presidential residence on Tuesday as Nasheed prepared to relinquish power, said a police spokesman, Ahmed Shyam. Consuming alcohol outside tourist resorts is a crime in the Muslim country. If charged and convicted of possession of alcohol, Nasheed could be sent to jail for three years, banished to a distant island, placed under house arrest or fined.

Authorities said Nasheed was under police and army watch at an undisclosed location, but denied he was under house arrest.

"Mr Nasheed is protected by the current government because there might be some people wanting to harm him," Shyam said. "He's in a safe place now, but any other action will be decided by the government."

Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director, Sam Zarifi, called on the new government not to seek retribution against Nasheed and said "his exact whereabouts must be clarified immediately".

Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president, presented his resignation in a nationally televised address after police joined demonstrators protesting against his decision to arrest a top judge and then clashed with soldiers in the streets. Some of the soldiers then defected to the police side.

Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic party insisted his departure was a "coup" engineered by rogue elements of the police and supporters of the country's former autocratic leader. Others blamed Islamic extremists.

Hassan's office denied the military had pressured Nasheed to quit, and an adviser to the former president said he had not resigned under duress, but to prevent further violence in the street.

Hassan sought to calm fears that Islamists were gaining power in the country.

"They are part of the society; you can't ignore them," he said. "But there is a wide range of people with different views, philosophies and ideas about politics. I am planning to create a plural multi-party government."

He also worked to reassure the vital tourism industry that the country, known for its stunning beaches and lavish resorts, remained a peaceful place to visit.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in a statement he hoped Nasheed's resignation would lead to a peaceful resolution of the political crisis. He called on all Maldivians to cement the nation's democratic gains.

The UN assistant secretary general, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, is scheduled to lead a UN team to the country later this week to help the Maldives resolve its political tensions.

Nasheed's resignation marked a stunning fall for the former human rights campaigner who defeated the nation's longtime ruler, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the country's its first multi-party elections. Nasheed was also an environmental celebrity calling for global action to combat climate change that could raise sea levels and inundate his archipelago nation.

In a phone call with US officials, Hassan expressed his strong commitment to a peaceful transition of power and the preservation of democracy.

Hassan Saeed, a former attorney general and Nasheed ally, said he hoped Nasheed's resignation would end the political bickering that had become a hallmark since the country became a multi-party democracy in 2008.

"I am happy that the rule of law and justice prevailed," he said.

Over the past year, Nasheed has been battered by protests over soaring prices and demands for more religiously conservative policies.

Hundreds of Met officers aim to track down gang members as part of new Trident gang command

Police will target dozens of suspected gang members in a series of co-ordinated operations across London as Scotland Yard begins a renewed crackdown on gang crime.

Hundreds of Metropolitan police officers will take to the streets of the capital on Wednesday to track down and arrest suspected gang members believed to be involved in crimes including assault, robbery and supplying drugs.

The operation, spearheaded by the Met's newly formed Trident gang crime command, marks what senior officers have described as a "step change" in the way the force tackles gangs.

Scotland Yard revealed it had committed 1,000 officers to fighting the problem, with the creation of the central Trident gang command and 19 task forces to deal with local gang crime in problem boroughs across London.

Operation Trident was originally set up in 2000 to tackle gun crime in black communities across the capital and has gradually grown over the past decade.

Under the unit's expanded remit it will retain responsibility for investigating shootings, but also work alongside the borough task forces to proactively tackle gang crime, the Met said.

It will have access to specialist resources including Operation Connect – the Met unit set up to tackle violence driven by gang culture – and the Serious and Organised Crime Command.

The Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, said: "This is a step-change in how we tackle gang crime in London. It will allow us to identify and relentlessly pursue the most harmful gangs and gang members. It will help us identify young people on the periphery of gangs and work with partners to divert them away.

"Although we are now nearly doubling the number of officers dedicated to tackling gang crime, the police cannot do this alone. It is vital we work with the public, local authorities, charities and other agencies to prevent young people from joining gangs in the first place."

There are an estimated 250 active criminal gangs in London, comprising about 4,800 people mostly aged between 18 and 24, according to police statistics.

Of these gangs, 62 are considered "high harm" and commit two-thirds of all gang-related crime, the Met said.

The force added that gangs, which range from organised criminal networks involved in Class A drugs supply and firearms to street-based gangs involved in violence and personal robbery, were responsible for approximately 22% of serious violence, 17% of robbery, 50% of shootings and 14% of rape in London.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Cundy, commander of the new Trident gang crime command said: "Since its launch in 2000 Trident has developed its expertise in combatting shootings in London, and in recent years Trident has become more and more focused on tackling gangs across London.

"Today sees the Met building on the proven successes of Trident and other units. This new approach is a significant change for Trident as it now leads the Met's response to gang crime, but rest assured Trident will remain focused on preventing and investigating all shootings in London, regardless of the victim's or perpetrator's background."

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said tackling gangs was the top crime priority for London.

"We've been attacking gangs from all angles. Now the Met has a concerted and determined push to take out the ringleaders and tempt impressionable youngsters away from this destructive life," he added.

Hogan-Howe said some gang members were as young as 14.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said: "We have got pretty good intelligence. We think there are around 4,800 members of these gangs spread across London.

"The first thing is to know who you're looking for. The second thing is that we say to them very directly: 'We know you're a gang member. We want you to stop that. We know you're involved in offending. If you don't then you can expect a knock on the door.'

"As you see this morning, we've got lots of officers. I think we've got over 300 raids being carried out across London this morning."

Hogan-Howe said anyone caught offending would be arrested.

He said: "What we've got to deal with as the police, we've got to deal with the consequences, so where they're hurting people we've got to first of all stop them hurting people, and if they do then we've got to make sure that we arrest them.

"Where we can we also work with all the boroughs of London and all the different partners to try and divert particularly young people away from a life of crime, to keep them away from these gangs. Or if they're in them, get them away.

"It's not our aim to criminalise young people. Our aim is to try and stop people getting hurt and if we can get them out of the gangs by working with partners then we will do that.

"The bottom line is, if they're offending, then we've got to arrest them."

Parliament to debate reintroduced anti-homosexuality proposals that could lead western donors to cut aid

A bill that would make the death sentence mandatory for gay "repeat offenders" has been reintroduced in the Ugandan parliament, a move likely to draw fresh condemnation from western aid donors.

The bill was originally proposed as a private member's bill in 2009 by David Bahati, a legislator with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, provoking an international outcry.

President Barack Obama denounced the bill as "odious", and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, called on the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, to reject it. International donors threatened to cut aid to the country if it became law.

The bill was shelved last May. Following widespread international condemnation, the cabinet said in August it had decided to drop the bill because existing laws were sufficient to deal with homosexual "crimes".

However, a small but vocal anti-gay movement led by several MPs and a group of bishops said it was determined to reintroduce the proposed legislation.

"The anti-homosexuality bill was retabled on the floor of the House today and has been referred to parliament's legal and parliamentary affairs committee for scrutiny," the parliamentary spokeswoman, Helen Kawesa, told Reuters.

"The committee is expected to examine it and conduct public hearings, and then it will report back to the House for a formal debate on the bill."

Homosexuality is taboo in many African nations. It is illegal in 37 countries on the continent, including Uganda, and activists say few Africans are openly gay becuase they fear imprisonment, violence and loss of jobs.

The bill has given Uganda a reputation as the "world's homophobia capital".

Ghana and Tanzania have said they will resist pressure to legalise homosexuality despite Britain threatening to cut aid to countries that deny gay rights.

Julian Pepe, a Ugandan gay rights activist, told Reuters: "We've always said, it's not over until it's over. It's disappointing that this bill has been revived.

"We are expecting a backlash from the public, but we're not giving up our fight. We'll engage our partners and talk to MPs and hope sense prevails at the end of the day."

Actor expected to announce settlement in long-standing dispute with News International, days before case is due to go to trial

Steve Coogan is poised to settle his phone-hacking claim at the high court on Wednesday morning, just days before his case against the Murdoch-owned publisher of the News of the World was due to go to trial.

The actor and comedian, who has pursued his claim against News International vehemently over the past year, is expected to appear in court at a scheduled pre-trial hearing in front of Mr Justice Vos, sources say.

That has fuelled speculation that he is will announce he has settled his long-standing dispute with the company, and triggered anticipation that some of the other outstanding phone hacking cases will also be settled on Wednesday.

His case is among 10 ongoing claims that were due to be come to a full trial on Monday, in hearings designed to provide a benchmark for the level of compensation due in any future cases.

Others cases awaiting trial include actions by singer Charlotte Church and her parents, the sports presenter Sky Andrew, MP Simon Hughes and the jockey Kieren Fallon.

Last minute negotiations continued on Tuesday night but it is expected a number of the 10 in addition to Coogan will also announce they have settled, in a procedural hearing just days ahead of full trials commencing.

Next week, Vos was scheduled to hear five of a total of 60 cases involving different categories of claimants including victims of crime, celebrities and sports figures in order to set the benchmark for future claimants.

Coogan has been one of the most outspoken and persistent claimants and has resolutely used to courts to force News International and the police to part with information, including notes of the private detective Glenn Mulcaire, over the past 18 months.

The comedian, in an interview with the Guardian in November, compared News International to a "protection racket" that uses the threat of press intrusion to ensure it is allowed to "conduct business unencumbered by scrutiny or regulation".

Last month, News Group Newspapers, the immediate parent company of the now defunct News of the World, paid out at least £640,000 in settlements with 37 celebrities including actor Jude Law, Sarah Payne, mother of murdered schoolgirl Sara, and Shaun Russell, father of Josie Rusell who survived a hammer attack that killed her mother and sister in 1996. That left 10 cases that could go forward for Monday's trials.

News International offered its "sincerest apologies" in court for the distress and damage it had caused in the first major public capitulation for the company which had up to late 2010 maintained that phone hacking was isolated to one "rogue reporter" who covered royal stories.

In the settlement hearing last month, Vos said the Murdoch-owned company behind the News of the World had made "an admission of sorts" that it engaged in a deliberate cover-up of evidence relating to phone hacking, on the day that the publisher paid an estimated seven figures in damages to settle 37 phone-hacking claims brought by public figures ranging from Jude Law to John Prescott.

Vos told News Group Newspapers he had seen evidence which raised "compelling questions about whether you concealed, told lies, actively tried to get off scot free".

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Lecturers' union says European data shows Britain risks languishing in 'mid-table obscurity' due to rising cost of learning

The UK has a smaller proportion of adults with A-levels or their equivalent than Poland or Bulgaria, an analysis by the European Union's official statistics agency shows.

Several former eastern bloc countries now have adult populations that are more highly educated than the UK's, the Eurostat data reveals. They include Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria.

Statisticians ranked 33 countries according to the percentage of their adult population aged 25 to 64 who had completed upper secondary school – the equivalent to A-levels – in 2010.

The UK was 19th, with almost a quarter of adults (24%) not having A-levels or the equivalent. Lithuania came top with 8% of adults failing to complete the equivalent of sixth-form courses. Turkey was bottom, with 72% of its adults without A-levels.

Former Communist countries such as Poland (11%) and Bulgaria (21%) outperformed the UK. On average across the 33 countries, 27% of adults had not completed sixth-form study.

The lecturers' union, the University and College Union, said the figures showed the UK was languishing in "mid-table obscurity".

Sally Hunt, the union's general secretary, said there was a "very real possibility" that coalition reforms could lead to the country sliding further down the table in future years. She said the near-trebling of university tuition fees to up to £9,000 a year and restrictions on university places would have a detrimental effect on the nation's qualifications.

However, a spokeswoman from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose remit includes universities, said the coalition was overhauling the school system to ensure the poorest could study at college and university and creating thousands more higher-level apprenticeships.

Last month, ministers said there would be fewer university places at English universities this autumn. In previous years, an extra 10,000 places had been created to accommodate demand, but these will not be available this year. Some 5,000 places for universities that over-recruit have also been taken away.

The BIS spokeswoman said the number of full-time undergraduates in 2012-13 would remain at record levels.

In December 2010, a study of 65 countries showed the UK had slipped down world education rankings in maths, reading and science, and had been overtaken by Poland and Norway. The study, compiled by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, revealed that the UK's reputation as one of the world's best for education was at risk.